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In recent years a new--disquieting--form of disruptive innovation has emerged. It doesn't follow Clayton Christensen's classic model, entering the market as a cheap substitute to a high-end product and then gradually increasing in quality and moving up the customer chain. Instead, the innovation beats incumbents on both price and quality right from the start and quickly sweeps through every customer segment. This kind of "big bang" disruption can devastate entire product lines virtually overnight. Look at the effect that free navigation apps, preloaded on smartphones, had on the market for devices made by TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan. Big-bang disruptions often come out of the blue from people who aren't your traditional competitors. Frequently, they're developed by inventors who are just doing low-cost experiments with existing technologies to see what new products they can dream up. Once launched, these innovations don't adhere to conventional strategic paths or normal patterns of market adoption. That makes them incredibly hard to combat. The authors, who've spent 15 years studying marketplace disruptions, offer some strategic principles to help businesses survive big bangs: Be on the watch for failed experiments that could signal that a big bang is brewing in your industry. Find ways to slow the disruptive innovation down and to leverage your surviving assets in another business. These assets will usually be intangible; other kinds of assets generally lose value quickly after a big bang and must be shed quickly. Diversifying into new kinds of business will protect your company. Though technology- and information-intensive firms are most vulnerable to big bangs, mature industries face this threat, too. Credit cards, automobiles, and education, for instance, are all experiencing early warning signs. But in every industry, big-bang disruption will be keeping executives in a cold sweat for a long time to come.

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In recent years, a number of bestselling management books have focused on providing a recipe for business greatness. Others have sought to unlock the secrets of long-term business success. But a detailed, research-based analysis at the intersection of the two-one that explains how some companies manage to achieve repeated peaks of business performance-has been missing, until now. After extensive study spanning nearly a decade, authors Paul Nunes and Tim Breene, leaders of the Accenture's High Performance Business research program have found that what matters is not just what you do to reach the top of one successful business (climbing your current "S-curve"). Many companies will succeed once. Equally important are the counterintuitive moves you must make early on the way up to prepare for the move to the next business (making the jump to your future "S-curve"). In Jumping the S-Curve, Nunes and Breene reveal the crucial insights for making such transitions, including: (1) Why traditional strategic planning won't allow you to find the "big enough" market insights that are critical to superior performance, (2) Why your top team must be refreshed before performance starts to wane, and (3) Why you need much more talent than you think, especially "serious talent" that will find you worthy of their time. Filled with solid practical advice, Jumping the S-Curve finally demystifies how companies can thrive with one successful business after another, through both good times and bad.

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This HBR Case Study includes both the case and the commentary. For teaching purposes, this reprint is also available in two other versions: case study-only, reprint R0810X, and commentary-only, reprint R0810Z.

Ruffin CEO Bill Bronson is on a mission. Counterfeits of his company's adventure gear and clothing are on the rise, and Bronson is hell-bent on stopping them. He has hired top-notch investigators to track down the criminals, invested in technology that will help distinguish his products from look-alikes, and pushed online vendors to stop selling fakes. All of that has cost a lot of money, however, and the problem seems to be getting worse. How far should Bronson take his campaign? Three experts comment on this fictional case study in R0810A and R0810Z. Giorgio Brandazza, a professor at SDA Bocconi School of Management, fought a similar battle as an executive at Calvin Klein. He advises Ruffin to mitigate the effects of copycats by building up the strength of its brand. For one thing, the company should increase its retail presence in countries where it is plagued by fakes. Single-brand stores will allow Ruffin to guarantee customers they're getting authentic goods, showcase its products in distinctive ways, and build strong relationships with consumers. J. Merrick "Rick" Taggart, president of Victorinox Swiss Army in North America, recommends zeroing in on the worst counterfeiting offenders. A resource Ruffin should take advantage of, he says, is customs and border patrol officers; if the company frequently communicates with them about ports of entry and consignee and consignor data, these officials can more easily sniff out illegal activity. The foundation for any good defense against counterfeiters, says Candace S. Cummings, general counsel of VF Corporation, is instituting tight controls over the company's supply chain and distribution process. That means, among other things, choosing manufacturing partners carefully and having strict contracts with distribution partners that, for example, prohibit products from going anywhere but outlets the company trusts.

learning objective:

In this fictional case study, the head of a company that makes apparel and equipment for outdoor enthusiasts must decide what to do about increased counterfeiting of the firm's products. The reader will consider questions such as how to control legal expenses associated with combating counterfeiting, how to partner with customs and border patrol officers to identify counterfeits, and how to use retailing strategies to strengthen a company's brand and thus reduce customers' desire to buy counterfeit goods.

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For teaching purposes, this is the commentary-only version of the HBR case study. The case-only version is Reprint R0810X. The complete case study and commentary is Reprint R0810A.

Ruffin CEO Bill Bronson is on a mission. Counterfeits of his company's adventure gear and clothing are on the rise, and Bronson is hell-bent on stopping them. He has hired top-notch investigators to track down the criminals, invested in technology that will help distinguish his products from look-alikes, and pushed online vendors to stop selling fakes. All of that has cost a lot of money, however, and the problem seems to be getting worse. How far should Bronson take his campaign? Three experts comment on this fictional case study in R0810A and R0810Z. Giorgio Brandazza, a professor at SDA Bocconi School of Management, fought a similar battle as an executive at Calvin Klein. He advises Ruffin to mitigate the effects of copycats by building up the strength of its brand. For one thing, the company should increase its retail presence in countries where it is plagued by fakes. Single-brand stores will allow Ruffin to guarantee customers they're getting authentic goods, showcase its products in distinctive ways, and build strong relationships with consumers. J. Merrick "Rick" Taggart, president of Victorinox Swiss Army in North America, recommends zeroing in on the worst counterfeiting offenders. A resource Ruffin should take advantage of, he says, is customs and border patrol officers; if the company frequently communicates with them about ports of entry and consignee and consignor data, these officials can more easily sniff out illegal activity. The foundation for any good defense against counterfeiters, says Candace S. Cummings, general counsel of VF Corporation, is instituting tight controls over the company's supply chain and distribution process. That means, among other things, choosing manufacturing partners carefully and having strict contracts with distribution partners that, for example, prohibit products from going anywhere but outlets the company trusts.

learning objective:

In this fictional case study, the head of a company that makes apparel and equipment for outdoor enthusiasts must decide what to do about increased counterfeiting of the firm's products. The reader will consider questions such as how to control legal expenses associated with combating counterfeiting, how to partner with customs and border patrol officers to identify counterfeits, and how to use retailing strategies to strengthen a company's brand and thus reduce customers' desire to buy counterfeit goods.

Publication Date:

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description

For teaching purposes, this is the case-only version of the HBR case study. The commentary-only version is Reprint R0810Z. The complete case study and commentary is Reprint R0810A.

Ruffin CEO Bill Bronson is on a mission. Counterfeits of his company's adventure gear and clothing are on the rise, and Bronson is hell-bent on stopping them. He has hired top-notch investigators to track down the criminals, invested in technology that will help distinguish his products from look-alikes, and pushed online vendors to stop selling fakes. All of that has cost a lot of money, however, and the problem seems to be getting worse. How far should Bronson take his campaign? Three experts comment on this fictional case study in R0810A and R0810Z. Giorgio Brandazza, a professor at SDA Bocconi School of Management, fought a similar battle as an executive at Calvin Klein. He advises Ruffin to mitigate the effects of copycats by building up the strength of its brand. For one thing, the company should increase its retail presence in countries where it is plagued by fakes. Single-brand stores will allow Ruffin to guarantee customers they're getting authentic goods, showcase its products in distinctive ways, and build strong relationships with consumers. J. Merrick "Rick" Taggart, president of Victorinox Swiss Army in North America, recommends zeroing in on the worst counterfeiting offenders. A resource Ruffin should take advantage of, he says, is customs and border patrol officers; if the company frequently communicates with them about ports of entry and consignee and consignor data, these officials can more easily sniff out illegal activity. The foundation for any good defense against counterfeiters, says Candace S. Cummings, general counsel of VF Corporation, is instituting tight controls over the company's supply chain and distribution process. That means, among other things, choosing manufacturing partners carefully and having strict contracts with distribution partners that, for example, prohibit products from going anywhere but outlets the company trusts.

learning objective:

In this fictional case study, the head of a company that makes apparel and equipment for outdoor enthusiasts must decide what to do about increased counterfeiting of the firm's products. The reader will consider questions such as how to control legal expenses associated with combating counterfeiting, how to partner with customs and border patrol officers to identify counterfeits, and how to use retailing strategies to strengthen a company's brand and thus reduce customers' desire to buy counterfeit goods.

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The number of international tourist visits will more than double in the next dozen years. As demand for access to hot spots outpaces capacity, some companies will profit by creating destinations. And all businesses will need to adopt strategies for claiming - or avoiding - prime turf.

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This article includes a one-page preview that quickly summarizes the key ideas and provides an overview of how the concepts work in practice along with suggestions for further reading.

They're nominally and ultimately responsible for strategy, but today's CEOs have less and less time to devote to it. As a result, CEOs are appointing "chief strategy officers" (CSOs)--executives specifically tasked with creating, communicating, executing, and sustaining a company's strategic initiatives. In this article, three authors from Accenture share the results of their research on this emerging organizational role. The typical CSO or top strategy executive is not a pure strategist, conducting long-range planning in relative isolation. Most CSOs consider themselves doers first, with the mandate, credentials, and desire to act as well as advise. They are seasoned executives with a strong strategy orientation who have usually worn many operations hats before taking on the role. Strategy executives are charged with three critical jobs that together form the very definition of strategy execution. First, they must clarify the company's strategy for themselves and for every business unit and function, ensuring that all employees understand the details of the strategic plan and how their work connects to corporate goals. Second, CSOs must drive immediate change. The focus of the job almost always quickly evolves from creating shared alignment around a vision to riding herd on the ensuing change effort. Finally, a CSO must drive decision making that sustains organizational change. He or she must be that person who, in the CEO's stead, can walk into any office and test whether the decisions being made are aligned with the strategy and are creating the desired results. When decisions below the executive suite aren't being made in accordance with strategy, much of the CSO's job involves learning why and quickly determining whether to stay the course or change tack.

learning objective:

To discover how a chief strategy officer can help a company execute its strategy and to learn the defining characteristics of an effective CSO.

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For several years now, marketers have been urged to embrace one-to-one marketing and to offer micro-segmented consumers customized products and services through targeted outreach. While the "market of one" approach can pay off, say the authors, it requires a significant upfront investment, including: implementing customer relationship management software applications; filtering, enhancing, and cleaning customer data; and personalizing interactions (e-mail, billing, offers, and so on). These activities take time and the coordination of multiple parts of the organization (marketing, customer service, sales, information technology), which can be daunting for companies trying to react quickly to a changing environment. In addition, those systems have often produced disappointing results because their use was not well integrated with corporate strategy. Also, micro-marketing strategy, on its own, is too narrow. Companies still need to reach broad groups of people with messages that are not dependent on an individual's decision to open an envelope (whether virtual or physical), pick up the phone, or click on a box. But broad-based, broadcast media is ineffective and expensive. Fortunately, there are alternative solutions, such as one-to-one targeting and the broadcasting of 30-second television spots. The author's research on trends in marketing spending and consumer attitudes about advertising reveals four strategies available to companies that want to reach broad groups of people without breaking their marketing budget. The strategies are liberally illustrated with examples from Nike, Microsoft, UBS, Delta, Sony, Procter & Gamble, Citibank, Nextel, Honda, Nokia, and McDonald's, among others.

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For teaching purposes, this is the case-only version of the HBR case study. The commentary-only version is reprint R0610Z. The complete case study and commentary is reprint R0610A.

As president of Scotch whisky maker Glenmeadie, Bob Littlefield is pleased to see the results of his CMO's recent marketing initiatives. There are new interactive capabilities on the company's Web site, a product information call center, and numerous other customer interfaces designed to deepen consumers' connection to the brand. Thanks to these front-end innovations, sales are up--and largely because of more loyal purchasing behavior, research shows. But not all the news is good. Glenmeadie's CFO says the marketing programs account for half the company's costs. Meanwhile, Glenmeadie's master distiller, Ellis Cameron, resents the fact that, with so much money going toward enhancing customer relations, there isn't enough left for his R&D efforts. In a meeting with Bob, he launches into a tirade about priorities. "There's an old expression," Ellis says, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Glenmeadie, he says, is neglecting the customer's basic need, "We've given up on redesigning his mousetrap and are trying to trap him instead!"

Commenting on this fictional case study in R0610A and R0610Z are David Herman, president of luggage maker Hartmann; Marketspace's president, Jeffrey Rayport; Stephen Dull, vice president of strategy at VF; and Joe Scafido, who leads innovation at Dunkin' Brands.

learning objective:

To appreciate the trade-offs between investing in marketing efforts versus product innovation and discover strategies for striking a profitable balance.

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This HBR case study includes both the case and the commentary. For teaching purposes, this reprint is also available in two other versions: case study only, reprint R0610X, and commentary only, reprint R0610Z.

As president of Scotch whisky maker Glenmeadie, Bob Littlefield is pleased to see the results of his CMO's recent marketing initiatives. There are new interactive capabilities on the company's Web site, a product information call center, and numerous other customer interfaces designed to deepen consumers' connection to the brand. Thanks to these front-end innovations, sales are up--and largely because of more loyal purchasing behavior, research shows. But not all the news is good. Glenmeadie's CFO says the marketing programs account for half the company's costs. Meanwhile, Glenmeadie's master distiller, Ellis Cameron, resents the fact that, with so much money going toward enhancing customer relations, there isn't enough left for his R&D efforts. In a meeting with Bob, he launches into a tirade about priorities. "There's an old expression," Ellis says, "Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Glenmeadie, he says, is neglecting the customer's basic need, "We've given up on redesigning his mousetrap and are trying to trap him instead!"

Commenting on this fictional case study in R0610A and R0610Z are David Herman, president of luggage maker Hartmann; Marketspace's president, Jeffrey Rayport; Stephen Dull, vice president of strategy at VF; and Joe Scafido, who leads innovation at Dunkin' Brands.

learning objective:

To appreciate the trade-offs between investing in marketing efforts versus product innovation and discover strategies for striking a profitable balance.

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